Stories from the Southern Cross consists of three new pieces of writing produced in collaboration with the first Australia New Zealand Literature Festival. Each story represents a new voice from the Antipodes - a place at once very familiar, but in fact quite different.

The series depicts a world of aggressive ennui, of suburban sprawl battling with a voracious bush and extreme weather, of taboos and generations colliding as old, White Australia comes to terms with another generation of migration.

In "The Road from Austinmer Beach", widower Bert Hamilton travels for two hours a week to visit residents in a home - when, one day, a traffic jam forces a change of route, the discovery of a cake shop and an encounter with the latest wave of immigration that sheds new light on his life.

Producer: David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4. Show less